Hi, My Name Is Antonio
by Lluvia Di'Noche
Summary: When I stared in the mirror, I didn't know who I was looking at. There was a stranger looking at me. Her face too round, her body too feminine. She was not me. She was someone I had been posing as and I couldn't stand the sight of her.


When I was a kid, everyone told me I was a tomboy. They said it was just a phase and that the way that I ripped apart my dresses and cut my hair several times on my own would go away. Even my best friend, Lorenzo, was told that I was just used to hanging around with the boys and thus was more boyish myself.

I didn't think much of it and accepted it as a kid. What did I know? All I knew was that dresses, as pretty as they were, never lasted on me. Eventually they all got torn apart. The poofy shirts and flowy skirts my family gave me on birthdays all went buried in the closet.

I always admired dresses and makeup. I thought that they were pretty, but they thought of them on me just seemed annoying. I was a tomboy, what could I say? Everyone around me joked about it all the time.

_"Oh Carmen, she's just one the guys these days."_

_ "If she cut her hair she'd look just like a man."_

_ "She doesn't like hanging around girls."_

That wasn't true at all. I actually liked being around girls. I just supposed I never fit in much with the girls in my area. I was always the kid who was a bit too odd and always got called sir at the store. I remember my friends asked me if it bothered me and I didn't understand why they asked that. Of course it didn't. It actually felt nice just like that time in grade school when I got assigned to be the prince in our class play.

Lorenzo understood. He always defended me when we were younger because the other kids feared to upset him. Even if he was a bit of a crybaby, he was a great friend and I love him for all he has done. Whenever we played games, he always let me be the knight or a prince or whatever I wanted to be. He never found it odd. One time he tried to be a girl in our game. He said he liked it but much preferred to be a knight or a prince. That was our childhood. We fought in faraway worlds where we were robbers, pirates, dragons, kings, or whatever else we dreamed of being.

Of course, kids can be cruel.

That's what my mom used to say.

Kids can be cruel.

She would tell me that when someone threw trash at me one day at my brother's wedding. I had been wearing a suit I picked out with my mama. I was told to start acting like a girl and that girls were meant to wear dresses. I was told that I was just trying to steal the attention at the wedding.

It wasn't anything new. My mama always knew I was different. I didn't stick with the stereotypes or expectations of our friends and neighbors (and even family) pushed on us. I got dirty, I wore trousers all the time, and I didn't really connect with my female cousins despite my deepest attempts. We knew how my family acted. They treated me often as if I were going to hell for choosing to dress more masculine. One aunt even asked me what happened to me to make me dress like this as if my tastes in clothes had to have a traumatic thing occur to express who I was.

_"Carmen is really concerning me."_

_ "I know. Do you think she was molested and that is why she dresses like a man?"_

_ "That must explain it. I am giving out the outfits for my wedding and I am making sure she wears a dress. I will not have her making an embarrassment of me."_

I overheard my aunts speaking one day late at night. I was twelve and I was supposed to be asleep upstairs but Lorenzo wanted some water. My tia kept her promise. The next day she gave me the dress I was supposed to wear to her wedding in a few months. She told me if that fabric wasn't on me then I would not be at her wedding.

Lorenzo and I sat there staring at it. It was awful. it was frilly and tight and there was no way I could wear it. I wanted to throw up at the sight of it and when I wore it, I felt as if I needed to claw my skin off. I could not bear the thought of wearing it. It was a shame, the deep red was so gorgeous.

_"What are you going to do, Carmen? You can't just not wear it. Your mom would be angry."_

I knew my mother would be. She was firm on respecting the wishes of my aunt. But God, I wanted to cry looking at it. It was so disgusting and the thought of that dress being on me was more than I could bear.

I went to my mother that afternoon and showed her the dress. She looked at it and told me she would fix it up a bit so I wouldn't feel uncomfortable. Though I was upset to still have to wear it, I agreed.

Lorenzo and I spent that summer exploring many things in hopes to forget the wedding. I did, but at a cost.

Kids can be cruel.

I was told my teachers when some kid followed Lorenzo and I all day and called us slurs.

_Kids can be cruel._

I know that they can, but I wish that parents would teach them not to be. We can all be a million terrible things, but we are taught not to be. So why when I was followed and threatened with my best friend was I told that kids can be cruel as a way to let the people making my life hard get away? Why is it kids can be cruel and no attempt to teach them not to be?

Kids can be cruel...

My mother said it again when Lorenzo and I came rushing because he had a bloody nose after getting in a fight with a kid who called me a word I do not wish to repeat. I didn't know what it meant at the time, but he did.

_"It's a word they call people like my Nonno because they don't understand."_ was all he said.

I nodded and we never said anything about it for the rest of the day.

The thing about Lorenzo's grandfather was that he was a wonderful man. He was a good man and I never met someone so kind. But Lorenzo's grandfather was practically shunned by everyone. He meant it when he said that they didn't understand.

Lorenzo's grandfather was transgender. He transitioned when Lorenzo's dad was about 10 years old. His wife left him and he raised his kids happily. He would later raise Lorenzo and his younger brothers when his father died in a fire later.

But he was a kindhearted man and he always was very favorable of me. He said I was such a strong and passionate girl who would go far in the world. When the kids began to bully Lorenzo and I, calling me unsavory words and saying Lorenzo was practically gay, well, his grandfather always was there to help us out.

Lorenzo is a wonderful man. He was always wonderful. He never cared what people said about me when we were kids. He always defended me best he could and has always been there for me. He never asked me to be more feminine and he never pushed it when I confessed I hated swimming because I only owned a two piece. He bought me some swimming trunks and a surfers tank top that week and we went swimming all the time.

My family never questioned it either and for that, I will always be grateful. They didn't joke about getting their daughter back the way other people did or ask me why I dressed how I dressed. They simply accepted it. When I said I wanted to cut my hair short like Lorenzo's, they took me and we got it cut.

Well, my aunt's wedding eventually did come around and I dreaded it. My mother told me not to worry too much and that she knew I would be happy with the alterations that she did to the dress. I doubted it and ranted to Lorenzo about it all that night. It seemed so unfair to force me to wear a dress like that just because they didn't like the idea of their precious Carmen dressing anything but feminine.

I ranted too soon. When Lorenzo came the next day to help me with my hair and makeup, there I was standing in the gorgeous red fabric my aunt gave me, but my mother made it a suit. I stared at myself in the mirror, tears pouring down my face because I had never felt so handsome in my entire life. It was loose but it fit and it was gorgeous. My mother had made it perfect. I felt like my favorite characters; I felt like me. I was real and alive and in that suit, I was free.

_"What's wrong, Carmen?" _Lorenzo asked, concerned and wanting to help if I was upset by the suit.

I shook my head and hugged him tight, my entire body shaking with all the emotions I had pouring out. _"Absolutely nothing. Everything is perfect."_

My aunt threw a fit at the wedding when I showed up. She demanded I leave since I was not wearing the dress. My mom, who I had never seen angry, told my aunt that I was doing exactly as she asked. I was wearing the fabric given. My aunt never did forgive us for that. She claims still that I ruined her entire wedding with my boyish tendencies and refusal to accept that I was a woman.

We haven't spoken to her since I was seventeen.

I often look back at that picture from that day and cry because no day has made me feel as good as that one. That is not to say I have been living a bad life but nothing will ever mean as much to me as my mother refusing to let my aunts tell me who I was and making me something I could feel beautiful in as well. The emotions that washed over me when I put it on and the way I felt as if God were telling me it was okay to be me will always stick with me.

Romulus, Lorenzo's grandfather, loved my suit and earlier this year he remade it for me. It's my favorite piece of clothing.

I suppose in the wild mess of families around us who thought that they could dictate who I could be, the Vargas family and mine connected together through the storm.

Despite the teasing, everyone was sure that I would end up dating Lorenzo. They were convinced of it. From the time we were kids people teased about our wedding. And though a lot of the comments were on finally getting me in a dress, we didn't mind.

We actually did end up dating.

It was the summer when we were fourteen that we fell in love. Lorenzo and I had been playing Messy Twister. After I slipped in the whipped cream, Lorenzo leaned down to kiss me. It was gross. We had mustard, blueberry preserves, whipped cream, ketchup, and who knows what else in our hair and on our faces. But because it was with Lorenzo, I was happy. We went on a few dates but agreed we didn't think we were really old enough to be dating. Yeah, other kids our age were but we were so dumb and busy being idiotic kids, we didn't really think it was time.

We started dating after my sixteenth birthday. Lorenzo is the best boyfriend that I could have ever asked for. He took me out to a terrible buffet restaurant and bought me this leather jacket I had my eyes on for a while. But, there was something that I had never told Lorenzo.

He didn't have a girlfriend.

He had a boyfriend.

Freshman year, I had a meltdown after I realized that I was a woman. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I hadn't really registered it properly until then. I didn't allow the fact that I would grow breasts and curves sit in my head and when someone mentioned that my chest was huge and my curves were nice—I lost it. I cut my hair shorter, I wore baggy clothes, but it was still there. I still had this body.

When I stared in the mirror, I didn't know who I was looking at. There was a stranger looking at me. Her face too round, her body too feminine. She was not me. She was someone I had been posing as and I couldn't stand the sight of her. I wiped the mirror, opened and closed my eyes a million times, wiped and scrubbed at my face trying to peel away the face I was seeing to get who I wanted to show.

That week, I never told Lorenzo, but I checked out the school's GSA club. It was there that I learned that being transgender was a thing. God, it felt like my eyes were opened and a weight had been taken off my chest. It also made a lot of things I had brushed aside from my childhood painfully obvious. So there was a reason for me insisting to take only the male characters in games for "curiosity reasons". After a few weeks, I had come up with possible names and thought about life if I was a man.

I talked to the president of the club about how I felt. Julchen was a transgender woman and I felt it was safe to talk to her. I had known her before, we had some classes together.

_"What if it's phase though?"_

_ "Honey, what you're describing is basically what I felt. You can take your time with this if you don't want to take the big leap yet. I know it's scary, especially considering the consequences that come going on HRT only to have to detransition, but I promise I am here to help guide you on this journey. We can work through this together. You don't have to go big or change who you are. Let's start small, introduce yourself to me with your new name."_

Julchen always was good to talk to. We became close friends and I invited her to sit with Lorenzo and me at lunch. She and Lore hit it off. They got along well and became really close friends. They both helped me pick out a suit for the winter dance. Lorenzo called me beautiful a lot. Though I loved his compliments, they always felt so off. It wasn't his fault, he didn't know.

_"You have a wonderful boyfriend, Antonio."_

_ "I know."_

_ "Have you told him yet?"_

_ "Not yet."_

It wasn't that I was afraid he wouldn't accept me, I knew he would. Lorenzo has the biggest heart and his grandfather is transgender as well. I just feared that maybe he wouldn't love me anymore.

Could you blame me?

He always was so happy to introduce me as his beautiful girlfriend. He talked about our future together and how I would be his cool wife that he loved with his entire heart. Though we agreed to adopt if we had kids, I still felt a twist in my stomach at the thought of them calling me mom.

I didn't tell anyone. Though I knew I was a boy, nobody else did.

I guess I just didn't want more comments from my family.

_Who abused you?_

_ Did someone touch you?_

_ Did one of those lesbians touch you?_

I know how my family is. I know how my neighbors are. They would have blamed Lorenzo's grandfather for encouraging me into "believing I was a man" and they would accuse him of stealing away my parents' perfect daughter. They might even call child services on my parents for "forcing a transgender lifestyle" on me because they gave me suits and let me cut my hair.

So I did not tell him.

For a while it was fine. Yeah, everyone still called me Carmen and made disgusting comments on my body, but I dealt with it. Lorenzo and I talked about our futures as if they were a step away. In a way, they were. We worked out together and I told him it was because I always had broad shoulders so I wanted to tone them. He said he wanted to work out with me too and we would always go on mini dates after to talk about school.

I love him.

He is the most wonderful thing to have stepped into my life. I have never met someone with so much love in their heart. Yeah, everyone assumes he's a jerk, but Lore is the sweetest man on Earth. He is so considerate. He always makes sure to get me a burger from the Five Guys by the mall because their fries are the best. He supports all my weird comic book obsessions and even helped me make my cosplay for Loki. He let me do makeup on him since I had so much stuff gifted from my aunts who still insist on making me feminine. Lorenzo makes me laugh on the loneliest of nights. He sings terribly to all our favorite songs and brings cannoli randomly. He gives the sweetest kisses and writes the most beautiful poems about how much I mean to him. The thought of telling him and losing him tore me up so much.

But hiding that from him hurt me more. Eventually, I couldn't even be around him a lot. Just being called his girlfriend and being reminded that I could lose my boyfriend just because of this ate at me. I had been so happy before. It hurt me to think about a future without Lorenzo. Julchen saw how I was reacting and suggested maybe it was time to tell him. I knew she didn't want to push me out before I was ready, but Lorenzo was getting worried too.

_"Why don't you want to go to the dance anymore?"_

_ "I just don't."_

_ "Carmen, you can tell me what is going on."_

I cringed at the way he said my name. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw things. I wanted to let him know that I was not Carmen.

I wondered if I would still be like this if I hadn't realized I was trans. I didn't dwell too much on it, not wanting to upset myself after so much progress in figuring out who I was.

Lorenzo was clearly noticing what was going on. I hadn't ever really let people's comments on how I was just a butch lesbian or...other words get to me. Had I been a butch lesbian I would have said something, but I wasn't and I couldn't respond without outing myself to the school and risking a lot. I already saw how Julchen got treated and as strong as I was, I don't know if I will ever be as strong as her. All it took was one comment on my curves or my chest and suddenly my dysphoria was slamming my head into a wall and I was feeling sick.

Even when I got a binder, people still made it about how I was just ashamed of my body. I know the girls in the P.E meant well when talking about my body, but it made me feel worse and just triggered my dysphoria. There wasn't much I could do really. People in my neighborhood and family already treated me terribly for looking like a dude. If I told them that I was actually a man, I knew that I would be met with much worse.

I guess at one point, knowing and still knowing I would never be who I am to these people got to me. I lashed out at Lorenzo after a comment he made when we were nearing the spring dance.

_"So what's your dress gonna look like?"_

It was a joke we made every time an event came up where people expected me to wear one. It never bugged me before because I would always shoot back with a silly description of a dress. Big, pink and blue, poofy, lots of ruffles, whatever we thought of. But I couldn't take even that joke because the more aware I was of who I was and had been all these years, the more still posing as Carmen hurt.

_"Oh, so you think I'm not feminine enough too?"_

_ "What? Carmen, no-"_

_ "Do you want me to wear makeup and show off my body? Hm? Do you want a real girlfriend? Are you tired of having half of one?"_

_ "Carmen, babe, I was just joking around like we normally do. Did I do something-"_

_ "Well the joke isn't funny and I'm tired of it. It's old and immature. I don't even want to go to the stupid dance. I'm tired of being seen as your broken girlfriend."_

I knew how we both were when angry, but I was so worn down by then. Only Julchen knew who I really was and I was so tired of being only who I was inside to her.

_"So you want to break up over a joke we've made a million times?"_

_ "If you're gonna brush your dumb comment off like that, then yeah!"_

_ "Carmen, if you had just said it upset you I would have said I'm sorry, you don't need to start acting like this!"_

_ "Like what? Like I'm tired of you acting like an overgrown child? We're graduating next year, Lore, grow up. I don't have the time or patience to raise my boyfriend!"_

He stared at me and I never regretted words more than those.

I have seen Lorenzo cry many times and he has seen me cry a hundred times as well. We are not new to crying aroound each other. But the tears he shed there standing in front of me carried more pain than I had seen in all the times he had cried to me combined.

He didn't say anything. Lorenzo just wiped his tears and left.

_"I shouldn't have snapped at him. I just had it all building up and I couldn't take it!" I sobbed to Julchen that night._

_ "Antonio, man, I know how it is. I know the frustration. I know you didn't mean to let it get to you, but you did and you have to apologize even if you don't get back together. He doesn't know what he did wrong."_

I knew she was right. I hated myself for what I said to Lorenzo. It was such a stupid thing to get angry about. We joked about me wearing a dress all the time, how was he supposed to know that this time I wasn't okay with it? All this time I had spent attempting to preserve the secret so that I wouldn't lose Lorenzo and I pushed him away anyway.

I apologized to him that afternoon and we went paintballing. We had a long talk after and he gave me kisses as if nothing had happened. It made me want to cry. I loved him so much; what was I going to do when I told him? Lorenzo didn't like guys. He had never spoken to me about that and we told each other everything. I was going to lose him when I told him I was one.

_"Carmen, can you please tell me what upset you?"_

Carmen. Carmen. Carmen. That stupid name! Carmen. The name everyone called me but I never was. Carmen. The name of a stranger whose body I had. Carmen. Some girl that I wasn't.

But I wasn't ready.

_"I can't tell you yet. Just no more dress jokes, please? I don't like them anymore."_

Lorenzo didn't protest.

_"Of course. That's all you gotta say."_

Lorenzo has always been too good for me. How could God give me someone so understanding and someone who loved me so much? How could I be gifted with the love and sarcastic comments of his? The gentle touch of his hand on my cheek and the words he whispers when I am sad. The bitter words he sends to those who look at me in judgement and that beautiful beautiful smile on the bluest of days.

I had to tell him.

A few days later, I woke up early in the morning sobbing. I had a dream where I had always been Antonio. A dream where Carmen never existed and where Lorenzo didn't want me. It was everything I wanted, but I lost him. I was so broken and beaten by the idea and I couldn't play the game anymore. I had to tell him. Yes, it was three in the morning, but he needed to know.

_"Carmen, what on Earth are you doing here so early?"_

Carmen. Carmen. Carmen. She was a mirage.

_"Lorenzo, there's something I need to tell you. It's about why I've been acting up. I should have told you before, but I have been so scared of losing you. But the more I hold it in, the more I feel like I'm burning."_

He flicked the lamp on and pulled me gently onto the bed to sit. Wiping away my tears, he whispered softly and tried to calm me down, but I was a mess.

_"Babe, what's going on? Why would you lose me?"_

This was it. This was it. I knew there was nothing else I could do and I wondered how badly I would break what we had.

_"Lore, mi vida, I'm not a woman."_

Silence.

Lorenzo looked up at me curiously and I took a deep breath.

_"I'm sorry.."_

He kissed my cheek.

_"Why? You have nothing to apologize for. I just wish you told me sooner. How long have you been holding this in?"_

_ "Since Freshman year."_

_ "Gesu….Caro..I wouldn't have judged you. Did you forget about my grandpa?"_

_ "I just didn't think you'd love me anymore if you found out I was a m-man."_

_ "Hey, nothing on this Earth could make me stop loving you, dummy. Unless you suddenly like pineapple on pizza, then that's a dealbreaker and I want a divorce."_

Why did people think he was terrible? Lorenzo was wonderful. He was a man who I wanted to spend all of my life with. He was sweet like powdered sugar on the cannoli we made and passionate like the carnations we decorated the corners of our papers in. This man was so wonderful, the sun bowed down to him.

_"If you don't mind, I'd like to meet my boyfriend properly." _he said, kissing me.

I won't lie. I didn't feel some glorious breath of life or the gust of the winds. I just felt the tension leave my shoulders and the tears finally stop pouring down my face. I took Lorenzo's hand, pressing a kiss to it, and smiled.

_"Hello, my name is Antonio."_

When I came out to my family, they were not surprised. They just told me that they were proud. When our family made comments on how I was hurt by a man and now thought I was one or comments on how I needed fixing from the lifestyle my parents pushed on me, we cut them off. I have not spoken to them since.

When I came out to Lorenzo's grandfather, he said he was a bit surprised I hadn't come to him but that if I had any questions, I was welcome to ask. That old man had a heart of gold. I still run my fingers of the deep red suit he remade and how wonderful it is. He has been a wonderful help along the way and an excellent mentor. I have learned much from him. My parents have taught me well, but Romulus works and teaches in a way that lingers in the back of your mind long after he has spoken.

I have learned a lot about loving myself. I have embraced who I am well and grown as a person in more ways than imaginable. There is nothing that could take away the love I have for myself. I am strong. I am bold. I have made a long way and I have slipped many times, but I have people around me who help even if they don't always understand. I have a boyfriend who shines like the sun and loves like a sonnet.

He bakes me things, sings songs to me, tickles me, and gives me more kisses than I could ever ask for. When he is sad, I read him poems I wrote and when we are bored, we paint each other with cheap paint from the store. There is so much in the world to bring us down more, I want to make the most of each moment and make the darkest moments full of life. I am free to be who I have always been now. That is enough good to last a hundred years.

Of course people still make comments now even though I am clearly a man.

_"Oh Carmen thinks she's a man now."_

_ "She took this tomboy thing too far."_

_ "Can't believe she ruined her body."_

_ "I always knew Lorenzo was just gay."_

_ "It's her family's fault for playing along with this."_

Lorenzo has never been one to be patient with these people. He has come home with a bloody nose once or twice. Despite his heart, I know he is impulsive at times and I know he is defensive.

_"They were talking again, as if they know a thing about you."_

_ "Let them. They don't matter."_

I know he doesn't always understand. He wants to hit the people who say these things about me, Julchen, or his grandfather. He is defensive; I understand that. I love his heart's direction, but I don't want him to come home bleeding because of stupid comments by stupid people. I have enough love from him and my family and friends to power through the hate.

I know that they exist and that they will always exist. I know that there will always be annoying people in the world who think they can decide who I am just as they tried when I was a kid. I know that I will always been seen as not enough. People will stare at the scars on my chest and people who knew me before will always try and call me by a name I no longer respond to. I have come a long way and some people will try to tear all of that down best that they can.

But honestly….why the hell should I care what they think?


End file.
